Chris and Mark discuss the return of Bronny James, the disappointing loss to Long Beach State, and the upcoming game with Auburn.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Chris and Mark discuss the return of Bronny James, the disappointing loss to Long Beach State, and the upcoming game with Auburn.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Welcome to the Dunk City podcast. Change direction by backstreet. This is the final round of life and the second quarter of this has been finished. It is a grand turn. Usc is on to the sweet 16. Welcome back to the Dunk City podcast, brought to you by USCBasketballcom. Chris Houston here with Mark Baxter. Happy holidays to everyone. And we are coming off of a very tough loss against Long Beach State and overtime on Sunday, and really you know, this team is heading south with alarming acceleration and USC is going to have to do something very quickly to turn this thing around. What say you, mark?
Speaker 2:When you said hiding south, did you mean geographically or spiritually, emotionally? How did you mean that?
Speaker 1:Well, as it turns out, all of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, my goodness, that was not a fun watch, not for the last 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. There's I'm sure people are starting to draw some parallels between this year's team and the 2017-18 team, which was Jordan McLaughlin senior year, which also came into the season with a lot of preseason hype and kind of struggled in the non-conference schedule. I think that team was nine and four in the non-conference so they played a few more games. But, um, yeah, this really stands out. About USC, the last couple of games Gonzaga and now Long Beach State is the perplexing level of. You know.
Speaker 1:The drop in the shooting percentage among certain players has been precipitous. Isiah Collier started out the year 34-41 from the free throw line 83%. Since then he is 7 of 18, or 38%. He was shooting 42% from three-point range. He's now gone 0 for 6 in his last three-pointers. Kobe Johnson started out 42% from three-point range. He is two of his last 13 or 15%, even on the free throw line. Kobe Johnson, who was 9 of 10 to start the year, is since then 7 of 12, 58%. You have as a team.
Speaker 1:The team was shooting 76.8% from the free throw line. They are 28 of 53 since then, or 52.8%, and from the three-point line the last two games. Usc is 13 of 53, or 24.5%, and someone like Harrison Hornery is now two of his last 17, which is about 11.7%. So there has been some remarkable drop-offs in the shooting, especially at the free throw line, where, technically, the last game probably could have been won at the free throw line and the game before that could have been a lot more competitive if USC had played well at the free throw line. So what do you think about these drop-offs, mark?
Speaker 2:I would first recharacterize the Long Beach game as saying this game should have been won at the free throw line. That really was the difference. We were 20 of 36, they were. Long Beach was 30 of 40. I mean, the Delta of six, you know, the six misses, is just brutal. I you know.
Speaker 2:I'll just kind of go back to what I said about three weeks ago, where I was a little leery about being so reliant on outside shooting. What's really frustrating to me too is you had in this game. It was Vince's game. You had in this game. It was Vince's first start.
Speaker 2:It looks like he's completely back from his back surgery and you know, granted, long Beach is not the most awesome interior defensive team that we will play, you know, but Vince was really having his way with them. You know, he had eight attempts from the field and made seven of them, and a lot of that was predicated on good ball movement. Not sure from an X's and O's standpoint, why that stopped. I don't know if, schematically, long Beach did something to stop our ball movement. That was so good around the perimeter in the first half of leaving Vince a lot of space to really finish with ease, very stylistically for the most part too. But boy, it was frustrating as collectively, the team is just kind of going off a shooting cliff not to get the ball to him in a situation where he could just get us some cheap and easy ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that the shooting cliff, like it's understandable what you said about the jump shooting, the outside shooting, but it doesn't explain the free throw shooting right. The free throw shooting is should stay steady and even last year USC improved tremendously as a free throw shooting team. They were very consistent To some extent. I'm not as surprised about Collier dropping off somewhat as a free throw shooter, but the level that he has is a bit alarming and it's also a bit weird to see Kobe Johnson also dropping off the team overall dropping off as a free throw shooting team the last couple of games. So that's a bit odd. As for Long Beach State, what they did was they had that zone where the man up top of the zone was very deep in our backcourt and was challenging. The zone was a very deep zone, so it was challenging Collier and Boogie up very high in the perimeter and in the first half it wasn't that hard to deal with. In the second half it seemed to really bedevil us and it wasn't something we were able to solve. But going back to that free throw attempts and let's talk about just for a second how ridiculously over-referred this game was, over-officiated, I should say. The number of fouls was. I mean, there were stretches in that game where I think every possession had a foul on either end of the court. There was a foul on either end of the court Long Beach State the dirtbags attempted 40 free throw attempts, which the last team to attempt 40 free throw attempts against USC was Arizona in 2020. Arizona with their bigs in 2020. And there is no team before that, going back to 2016, that attempted 40 free throw attempts. So you understand it. When there's great bigs right and guys who can, really you know a team like Arizona, their talented team, and they can drive on you and force you to foul them and draw contact.
Speaker 1:Long Beach State, not a bad team. You beat Michigan at Michigan. They're ranked, I think, 118th by Ken Palm, so they're not this bottom dwelling team. They're a decent team. They've got some good players, but 40 free throw attempts. I hate to complain about the officiating. I don't think it's the reason we lost, but it certainly contributed to the fact that, again, long Beach State attempted 40 free throws in this game. Some of these calls were just really weird, weird calls. And again, for the second straight game, kobe Johnson, who is our pace setter on defense, gets into immediate foul trouble because of this, and it seems to be that once he gets into foul trouble, our entire defensive intensity collapses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a few things. First of all, when the game is being called so closely like that, you've got to recognize I've never in my life seen, I've never seen one team have four, three point attempts.
Speaker 1:That was ridiculous by the same, by the same player, and at least two of them, he was clear. I mean, they were clearly you know flopping, you know bouncing off the defender, you know trying to draw the foul. Yeah, yeah, it was. They were bad calls.
Speaker 2:Having said that, though, you've got to be aware of that. It's clear when the rest are just with was lappy, you've got to adjust along the same lines. You know, I did a little informal accounting here. From the 18 minute mark to the eight minute mark, if you add up Kobe's point, steals, blocks and rebounds, it's zero because he was on the bench, it's, you know oh, you mean from the, from the end of the, of the first 18 minutes left 18 minutes left in the second half to eight minutes left because he's on the bench.
Speaker 2:And to go really, you know, old guy in Newport Beach, on you here what the primary ability is availability, and if you're on the bench for 10 minutes you're of no use to the team and an upperclassman who's so important has to realize that you can't. You know he's a good defender and he needs to. He needs to just remember that being a good defender is defending without fouling. You know I think that's.
Speaker 1:That's definitely true. But I mean so many of those. I mean so many of those fouls were just. You know, these are a lot of those plays are not plays that he would typically get called for for fouls. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Very fair, very fair. And the other side of that too, and this is my, my, probably the most frustrating thing of the night day, sorry, I don't know why we do that. We talk about a game, we say it's at nighttime. If it's going to be a closely officiated game, great then force the issue. As I think Don McClain at one point said, everything's a foul. So just penetrate on that point.
Speaker 2:I really not, you know not, not, not so jazzed to see a college with five, three point attempts, yeah. Now, when he did get to the line this is what the real frustration is he was five or 12 from the line. So, even when we're doing the right thing, if we can't capitalize it, that's just it. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's just, it's a recipe to lose. Yeah, if you can't give him kind of this. Even though they were different games, just the same things did us in here as it was, you know, against Irvine, in terms of just the free throw it is as I call it and just you know, just the silly fouls, yeah, and just just shooting, slipping, except for one or two guys, except it was a lot more widespread this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even Boogie and Kobe weren't great at the free throw. I, boogie was three of five right and Kobe was two of four. You want your guys to go make all your free throws in those situations and you might have a different game. Usc was seven of 31 31 three point attempts. I haven't checked the stats on that, but that's probably the most USC's had in several years and I get it. You know it's there's a lot of guys who couldn't shoot the three, but man, there's just not. A lot of them were hitting and, and and you know it's kind of funny 31 three point attempts. I would not have expected Boogie Ellis to have only attempted eight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what would be really interesting, and not to make you the podcast intern, I'd be really interested to know when was the last time we missed 24, three pointers in one game. That that's the maybe the most interesting context of that question.
Speaker 1:I'll make it note of that. Yeah, 24, three pointers missed. Yeah, it was in the course. Going back to the. And then there's also the 19 turnovers, right, yeah, the, the. I'm not sure how many of those turnovers were in the second half, but it seemed like a lot of them were. And again, just a lot of them were enforced because, because it wasn't like I think Long Beach State had, they had nine steals, which is a pretty good number, but you see, at 13 steals, right. So it was just that whole second half just seemed like a race to the bottom for USC to see which which player could outdo each other by by stinking it up.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about a few positive notes. Like you mentioned, vince Iwachukwu, seven of eight. He had six boards, 15.6 boards, had a block shot, even had an assist and he he definitely looks like he's starting around in a shape 25 minutes. So I think USC has that to hang their hat on a bit. And then, of course, the big headline of the game, ronnie James having his return to play and really looked very promising in his 17 minutes. Four points, two assists, three rebounds, two steals and a block. I mean, that's Bill in the stat sheet in a pretty short amount of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't see that in a debut. You know, I was a little skeptical when we were talking about him and you compared him with the Anthony Melton, I think he looked like a very, very young, very melt and like play there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean just all over the place, but not forcing it. Really good, defender, even when he's not stealing. You know, early on, you know he got that bench really fired up when he forced a turnover. I don't know if you'd notice that.
Speaker 2:Yeah just along the sideline, clearly beloved by his teammates. I I liked that he was a decisive passer early. You know, you see a lot of freshmen just come in and they get the ball and they just they kind of think for a half a second, ok, now what? Yeah, and you know, maybe he overpassed to a fault. But I'd much, I'd much prefer that he does that decisively and not to anybody. That's covered it's. You know, I'm very, I'm always skeptical of a freshman until I actually see them, you know, play at this level and I was very pleasantly surprised with with how well he did, without forcing anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, given that he played 17 minutes in his first game and given how comfortable he looked out there, I think USC is going to have to really start thinking about things, because throughout the the phase of the season where they're going to really have to buckle down If they have, I mean, they should have already been buckling down, but now they really have to buckle down because they play Auburn this weekend and last two games of the non nonconference schedule Auburn and then Alabama State Two days later, I think, auburn's on Sunday and Alabama State's on Tuesday. So, look, this is a team. It's right now the. The challenge is going to be getting to the tournament.
Speaker 1:Now there's a few things working in USD's favor and I think there's a couple of analogs here. One you go look back at the Oklahoma team with Trey Young back in 2017, 2018. That team was 18 and 13. And they were brought into the tournament. Of course, they were in the big 12 and they had a couple of good wins. But I think there is A sense in the committee to want to include Marquis players in the tournament and so, with USC having both Isaiah Collier and Browning James, certainly if we might get some benefit of the doubt there you hopefully USC wins it up games to where they don't need that benefit of the doubt, but USC might be able to get in over other teams based on that. And then the other thing is the other analog to that would be the Oklahoma State team with Kade Cunningham which was, I think, 20 and eight or 20 and nine, didn't really light things up in the regular season but was also given a nod because Cunningham was such a prominent player.
Speaker 1:But I think USC is going to have to start thinking about New lineups to try to find the right combination. It's obvious that Bronny is going to have to play a lot and I think that's going to be a good start A lot and he's still a freshman, so you can't depend on him too much. But you're USC needs to find some extra jolt of energy because they're playing out there and that's the thing when you're, when you're not shooting well, they say you know you got to least play defense and the defensive intensities in there to create that offense when you're not shooting well. And so they're going to need Bronny to help, sort of almost like he needs to, I will almost say like he needs to come in if the minute Kobe Johnson gets a foul, you know he needs to come right in and and and you know spell him. Or maybe you have both of them play at the same time and then and then you really have have a nice looking defensive lineup. But can USC play four guards and a big? That's the question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I Well, how to address that? I wouldn't say that we have seen any kind of magical lineup that like aha, this is it, this is exactly what's going to work, so I'm open to anything.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess to some extent, I guess to some extent you're really just trading. You might really just be trading Kobe for for DJ Rodman, right In the starting spot, and in a sense Kobe is probably taller than DJ Rodman, so at least height wise you're not giving up much. And so if you played Kobe, you played Kobe, collier, boogie and and Brony. If you started that for and then had Vince in the middle, it's probably not much. It's not much different than you're just trading Brony for our DJ Robin for Brony right.
Speaker 2:And you're being.
Speaker 1:Kobe down down to that spot, and if you're already playing four out one in anyway, you might as well just go with. You know whoever is giving you the best result of energy agree.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, I I kind of do like the ability to bring in defense off the bench just as you mentioned you know it's. It's kind of a kind of a weird thing to say, I know, but I just you know when you do have a how do I say this?
Speaker 2:I don't know if you, if you want to basically have it all out there at once. I do like to have that kind of what I want to say, almost like the signal about okay, you know, kobe's in foul trouble, this is what we're going to do, just with an actual bringing in somebody off the bench now maybe I'm just reading too much into it from a, you know, a management perspective, if you will to explicitly signal hey, okay, this is what we're gonna do to make sure that everybody's on page defensively. The other thing is is that realistic? Is it realistic to expect that much out of you know, a freshman who's who's got what? Would you say, 17 minutes?
Speaker 1:no, it's not, it's not realistic but but but you have to kind of go with it's working. You have to go with it and I don't know if it's gonna keep working and certainly to some extent. You know, brahney's obviously gonna have his struggles, but but you're gonna have to. He's gonna have to get looks like he's gonna have to get 20 minutes a game at least in this, in this lineup. And I mean some other guys are gonna have to lose some minutes and if you look at who's gonna lose the minutes, it's most likely going to be DJ Rodman, maybe a little bit of Kobe Johnson if he struggles and maybe a little bit of Isaiah Collier for those times he struggles too.
Speaker 2:Because, because, while he's not a, you know, an elite ball handler, brahney can can handle the ball pretty decently well, yeah, and I think just we've seen a little bit too much reliance on the starting three perimeter guys, mm-hmm, so just, maybe this is really, you know, just a little relief valve for that. Yeah, is they mentioned this? And I, you know, do we know what the what the minutes restriction is for brahney? Because it certainly isn't what Vince was on when they brought Vince back. And you know, I know that they're different situations. But, boy, you know, vince, vince didn't even start until a month later, or, you know, begin playing until a month later and it was, I think, like seven minutes or so in the first few games and right off the bat you've got brahney playing 16.
Speaker 2:Do you think there's some flexibility on that or?
Speaker 1:you know, and there must have been, it could be. Maybe his minute restrictions is 20 right, and and if that's his minute restrictions for a while, then but I think we can work with that because because that's a pretty good, you know, that's a that's he can contribute a lot in 20 minutes, you know. Yeah, so. So yeah, it's gonna, they're gonna have to point in, they're gonna have to read obviously the return of brahney means they're gonna have to reshuffle the rotation of it right and so finding the best combination of players. They got to, you know, they've got to figure out a way to get their free throws back and and then they've got to figure out a way to, to, you know, get some of that shooting confidence back from the outside. Now the good news is, if you look at, if you're looking at large sample sizes for players that are generally good shooters goby Johnson is generally been a good shooter. Boogie Ellis has generally been a good shooter. Isaiah Collier generally a fairly decent shooter. Dj Robin has been pretty, you know, has kept pretty steady of late then you have to like the chances of there being a shooting explosion coming up at some point. So hopefully it happens in this game against Auburn.
Speaker 1:The Auburn is a pretty good team. They're ranked 11th by Ken Palm. They just did lose to Appalachian State recently, which was an interesting loss, not a horrible loss. Appalachian State is, you know, not a horrible team but and they came, but they bounce back and handled Indiana pretty nicely. So it's going to be interesting. Auburn's a very good defensive team, the number 16 ranked defense. So it's going to be another challenge for the Trojans to to just get their offense going and and you know it's gonna have to just be the. The leaders, boogie Johnson and boogie Ellis and Coby Johnson, are gonna have to help USC crawl out of this hole agree.
Speaker 2:You know that was one of my first thoughts was boy you have. You know you have two slash three proven shooters from the outside and when the team has this kind of you know, this horrible level of shooting back to back, it's going to rebound. You know the frustrating thing is if you shoot as a team 37% from threes you don't do that every game it's. You know it's up and down. Yeah, you know I'm not saying that we're gonna shoot 50% from outside against Auburn, but you know I'd be shocked if we continue this again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to your point, auburn's a really good defensive team so it's a tough spot. But I mean, like I said I don't know if it was last week, I think it was last the last pod. You know defensive three-point field goal percentage. I've read enough to be convinced that a lot of that is just luck. And it's just how good is the other team shooting? You can limit maybe one guy, but after that it's just okay, you just kind of accept what happens. Yeah, well, so maybe we're on the other side of that this time well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting too, because I think you're mostly correct. I think there is an element of you know, if you are able to deny people clean looks as much as possible like if it's it's, it's not where it's it's, I think it's where you're letting the player get the ball, that helps determine it the most right. If you're able to to be on them before they get the ball, then then they're not able to set their feet as cleanly. They have to create maybe a little space and then create their shot right. But what you don't want to do is have it where they can just spot up and shoot, and the more you can prevent that, I think the less you know, the the poorer team shoot when that's the case. So, and what's that's?
Speaker 1:What's so funny about USC and their poor shooting is I think they've been getting consistently a lot of clean looks. Harrison Hornery has been getting clean, look after clean, look after clean look and he's just not making the shots. And and I think at this point, you know, I just don't think you can play him because because he's out there to make those shots now, maybe he's gonna go on a great role because you know he's two of his last 17. So maybe you know, if you think that Harrison Hornery is not intrinsically a 25% three-point shooter or 23%, which is what he's shooting right now, and that naturally he should work his way up to, let's say, even, respectively, 32 or 33%, then that means he's gonna, you know, start making some shots. But you can't really play him if he's missing shots because he doesn't really bring much else to the table and maybe you need to see I mean, there's a lot of guys on this team who can shoot three pointers, so you don't really need him to be out there you agree it's.
Speaker 2:You know that that's maybe one of my frustrations. From a coaching standpoint. The last game was his rebounding rate was only at 7.7 per 40 minutes last game, which is not good. That's basically what you know. I realize he's not a five, he's a four, but that's basically about what got Josh Morgan on the on the bench at the start of the game. Yeah, rebounding at that level and yet he played for 26 minutes. I don't like to see those minutes dispersed to somebody. You know you had. You had hotter hands in Oziah. Bronny didn't shoot awesome from the field, but he was productive with the assists. He had a very high BPO for the game. He actually had the best of either team. That's one of my frustrations and we've talked about this a few times. You know what do you do at the four, or do you just? You know, is your fourth, just your? Your fourth man on the perimeter? And yeah, four, four out one in.
Speaker 1:I think I think at this point, based on the way the Biggs have have developed or not developed. You know, morgan is basically a shop locking specialist, right, who is a decent finisher down low and when he, if he gets positioned down low, he can finish. Kejani Wright is still. He still is not comfortable in the post game and he still has not emerged as a rebounder. Arrington Page forever, you know, is one of those one step forward, two step back kind of guys. He shows great flashes in one game, the next game he looks horrible. So he's not a guy you can trust yet.
Speaker 1:But the same time you've got Boogie Ellis, isaiah Collier, kobe Johnson, dj Robin, oziah Sellers, harrison Horney, bronny James right, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven players who can shoot, who you know, who can, who can shoot right from outside. So you've got seven shooters and really one big down low who is a threat to score offensively or who the other team has to really account for offensively, and that's Vince, right. So so I think Enfield really has to go with the players you have and and I think he's trying to this point to send wave after wave of guys around the perimeter to, you know, see which one has the hot hand and you don't expect to to shoot 31, 31, 3 pointers and only makes seven. I think if you're, if the idea is, hey, we're gonna shoot a bunch because we're gonna just win by volume, even if USC had had made ten three-pointers, they win the game yeah yeah, the one thing I will make.
Speaker 2:We've talked about that a few times too. We've talked about okay, hopefully you find the hot hand on the perimeter, because we do have a lot of a lot of shooters. The thing that was interesting this time was the hot hand was not really anybody of our starting three. Yeah, and that's kind of an awkward thing. Do you do that? You know that your situation to find yourself in do you?
Speaker 1:boogie wasn't bad. I mean he was three of eight, correct. I mean he's okay. He's allowed to have an off-game, but he shouldn't. It should be okay. He should be able to get away with having an off-game?
Speaker 2:yeah, but when, when? When Collier is struggling so much and just shooting in general, can you take him off? Because and I've boogie run the point and have you know Oziah, who was he seems to be shooting well, basically, since he hit that big shot against Seton Hall. Yeah, I'd like to see him with more minutes, but it's, it's, it's, it's. I think there's combinations. I would have liked to see his work a little bit more through.
Speaker 1:That makes sense yeah, no, without a doubt he probably needs to see more minutes, but it's interesting. You know, some of Isaiah did go over five from three point, but I think a couple of those, at least a couple of those three-point attempts, were not necessarily shots he wanted to take. If you catch me like fair, like he looked like at the end of the first half, are out of the end of regulation, right, you know? Boogie passes in the ball right, so he's got to shoot, right, you know. So I don't think he wanted. It wasn't like it was ideal for him. I don't think he would have normally wanted to take that shot. I think there was another shot that he took in the first half of the shot clock expiring where he had to shoot it. I think he. I think again, he was past the ball really late in the shot clock and he had to shoot it. So at least two of those were just situational misses. But yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think really the issue is, is USC's not doing a good job of Enfield's not doing a good job right now of sort of adjusting in game to what the the other team is doing right, so that that one, two, two or three two zone that that Long Beach State was doing with, with the who was it? I think it was what Abu Khartra or a last seen a terrarium, I think he was the guy that was on top of the top of the zone and he was basically it was almost like a box and one. He was just basically sticking to whatever guard was there up top. Really, you know, just almost almost as soon as USC's guards crossed half court, he was up on them and then there was a zone behind him and and occasionally they would trap. And you know, this is the, this is the scout report on how you, on how you beat USC and how you you beat Collier right because he's gonna try to penetrate and and muscle you and the scattering port is.
Speaker 1:You got to get up on him early and agitate him early and hope, you know, try to get him, because right now he's not making quick decisions, stepping through double teams. He's not, you know, he's not. He's not making teams pay for their gambling and a lot of times it's resulting in turnovers or bad decisions in his part.
Speaker 2:I I'll push back a little on this, though I think that that what you say is accurate. Only because he's he's struggling from the line. I would say that you know that by the fact that he got to the line 12 times. It's the executions just there, except for making the free throw. Yeah, fair enough, you know so. Only the only one with more free throws than him was down as and I. He had 13 attempts and I wonder how many of those run just these, I'll call them in sipping fouls on three-point shots.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think you're, I think you're right there to some extent.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you go to the, if you go to the free throw line 12 times, I think it's fair to say that Collier should have made nine, nine of them, no worse than eight, right so, but yeah, it's, it's, it's a problem and it seems to be a mental issue with him because he has, you know, it has been talked about in the past, about his issues, and maybe he's thinking about those issues again as he. As things start to, you know the ball starts to bounce out, but that doesn't explain again, you know, the rest of the team not shooting well from from free-throwing. You have 16 missed free throws and then you know seven of those were colliers, but there are nine other miss free throws and you know it's just. You have to wonder about the, about the mental Confidence of the team right now. What's going on with that? This was a home game with a lot, of, a lot of people in the crowd, and it just seems like this is a team that wants to be prime time but doesn't seem to be ready for prime time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what one of the? I I agree and I I Think it's probably a decent part of that is might be because you do have some freshman leadership here and about that freshman leadership, this is interesting and it's really gonna notice because of the the issues that we talked about so far. But the last two games Colliers turnover percentage has been 11% and you might remember the column you know he had I'd mentioned in the last column that I did. He had games where he's regularly well over 20%. Yeah, so from that turnover standpoint he's, he's, he's been a lot better. Oh, yeah, I mean he's getting to the line, so his turnover.
Speaker 1:His turnovers have improved for sure. The last three or four games, and even the and even the turnovers he has had have been things like stepping out of bounds and a few of them. You don't like to see that. You want more quarter-wares, but it's better than he hasn't thrown many bad passes right.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, yeah, I think it's funny because the team is obviously struggling, but there's a lot of opportunities ahead and I don't think you could ever really count out an Andy Enfield team, because whenever they struggle they generally tend to bounce back and fix things and I think to some extent they will fix things. And the only question is will they fix things enough To make up for this, this rough patch? Same thing is happening to Michigan State. Michigan State is probably the other disappointing team in college football. They are four and five right now. College football, college basketball they are four and five right now. They have back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Nebraska. They've got one guy playing really well, tyson Walker, but the rest of the team is just you know.
Speaker 1:But I don't think anybody's gonna count Michigan State out right now of making the tournament because they have time, is it? And I'm not saying Andy Enfield is. Tom Izzo certainly doesn't have that great track record, but Andy Enfield does have a track record of success and there have been game and seasons where USC has started out With a little bit of rough patches and his and has turned things around. And certainly the personnel is there to turn things around and certainly it's quite possible. If Bronte James rounds into shape here and Vince Iwachuku rounds into shape here, things start to take a turn for the better once things get into conference play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we. It seems like the Enfield teams typically have, you know, a rough patch in February.
Speaker 1:That used to be the case and then it kind of fixed and then yeah, Maybe that's just moved up.
Speaker 2:He said hopefully.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's. It's one of those things where it's. They used to be, like with USC basketball. The thing was that just when you thought they turned the corner, then they sort of, you know, they give you the old switch right and they don't come through. And this looks like this could be one of those teams and you're hoping that the fan base doesn't get discouraged and the team doesn't get discouraged. But there's a great chance here you go and beat Auburn on the road and beat Alabama State, and those are two. Those could be two rejuvenating wins. So let's look at Auburn. You want to look at the analytics of what the Auburn game brings.
Speaker 2:Honestly, not really, but I will move forward. This is a. This is a brutal team man. Yeah, they're the first things that stand out to me. Opponents BPO 100 is a 40.9. Now they have had a few easy teams that they face, but they have also, as you said, they think they face Michigan and Indiana. Yeah, so far. So they're just defensively. They're not a fun team to not Michigan. They've played Notre Dame and Notre Dame, pardon me, yes, and they did, and they played Baylor.
Speaker 1:They've lost to Baylor and Appalachian State.
Speaker 2:Baylor is the one I was I was thinking of. They've played the good team. So defensively they're very, very tough. They will, you know, they will turn you over quite a bit. They how do I say this? They're turnover percentage margin. They're favorable versus opponents by 4.3 percent. So they're just getting more opportunities per game by quite a bit, offensively or offensive rebounding, they're grabbing 37 percent of boards, which has been, you know, we've it's been less of an issue for USC lately, but it still has as read its head from time to time. So we need to be cognizant of that.
Speaker 2:Here's what really concerns me. They are extremely balanced on offense. They have three players that play regular, regularly shooting 38 percent or better from three. So it's not like you can just focus on one guy One's at 38.5, one's at 39.2 and one's at 45 percent. So that's that's a tall task defensively. But, moreover, they have they play. Look at this they have 10 guys that have played 147 minutes or more. So that's basically are playing like 18 minutes a game or more. Yeah, they have a pretty deep bench, they do. And of that, of that group, eight of them have a BPO 100 of 50 or more. Seven. Seven of them are over 52. It's just, it's crazy One. Let me look here One, two, three, four, five of them are 56 or better. Yeah, so it's just, it's. It's a nightmare defensively. And the Buscard's mirrors that too. They have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven guys with a Buscar of 15 or more.
Speaker 1:Well, there's just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a picker poison kind of team.
Speaker 1:Well, there's two guys who dominate the shooting Johnny Broome, their big at Aiden. Holloway, their freshman guard, who they both? They get the majority or they get the bulk of the shots. Holloway I've seen quite a bit of. He's a, he's a little, he's a little waterbug freshman. He is not a great shooter overall, he's only shooting 35.8 percent from field field percentage. But he is shooting 39 percent from three. He's a, he's kind of a gunner and he's a streaky guy. And he's one of these guys who is.
Speaker 1:You have to keep keep an eye on him. And, and certainly Isaiah Collier is very aware of him, he's played against him many times in the summer leagues. But the rest of the guys, even though, like you mentioned, they do shoot a lot of threes or they do shoot well from three, they're not necessarily shooting a lot right, they're not. They're not very high volume Three point shooters. I believe so. But they, you know, I think it's one of those things where I think a lot of their, their defense, creates the offense. Now, let's not forget that. You see, did beat Auburn last year in Galen and I think that was a Auburn team that was a little short handed, if I recall. Do you remember?
Speaker 2:I think there's one, one player for a memory. I can't remember more specifics in that, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I'm looking at the game, it was the boogie had a very good game. It was a 74 71. And I believe that Johnny Broome was in the game last year, Jalen Williams was, and so basically most of the players are back. The big difference is Aiden Holloway. So I think, from a confidence standpoint, usc might feel good about playing them because they beat him last year. But hey, it's that Auburn, it's going to be loud, it's going to be crazy. They're going to be playing good defense. Usc is going to have to batten down the hatches and man up and hit some shots if they want to win, if they want to not get embarrassed. And if they get embarrassed then you know it's, then they're. You're looking at you beat Alameda State, it's. You're looking at a six and five out of conference schedule, which means you probably need to win Fort, you probably need to go 14 and six in league, which which they did last year and which is possible, and then you also need to win a couple in the conference tour. Yeah, I would say after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. Just very simply. This is the downside of scheduling so aggressively in the non-conference season, but hopefully that is pay off in the conference season.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the thing is. When you do that, you don't. You don't reckon that UC Irvine and Lobby State are going to be two year loss.
Speaker 1:Correct, so yeah you know, if those had been wins then maybe at worst USC finishes eight and three in the out of conference Right. So you're looking at, maybe you lose to Oklahoma and lose to Gonzaga Right and and Oklahoma Gonzaga. Even if you lose to Oklahoma, gonzaga and Auburn, let's say you're still eight and three. You've got a one over K state and you've beaten the teams you're supposed to beat Right. So this is the problem because they scheduled strongly but they but they've actually, you know, they've scheduled Kansas State, seton Hall, oklahoma, gonzaga, four teams right and they're two and two against those teams. So and then they've got Auburn to play.
Speaker 1:So we'll see, maybe they'll come back and beat Auburn. Just from a, from a team development standpoint, it would be nice to see. I mean just I'm looking for for intensity, fire, motive, you know good play. I can understand if they play well and Auburn plays well and and and you lose it Auburn, because it's tough to win on the road like that. But it would be very discouraging if USC did not come out with a lot of pride and fire in this game.
Speaker 2:For 40 minutes, I hope 40 minutes playing.
Speaker 1:You know it's. It's like USC played very well in the first half against Long Beach State and they seem to they seem to think that they could just put it on cruise control and go to the wind, and then, and then it's like how many times have you heard Don McClain's intonation that would they stick around long enough for they think they can win? And he was saying that when it was a nine point game, right and so, and so you just keep waiting for for Boogie else to make a play, or for Isaac. I think a lot of guys are standing around waiting for someone else to make a play, and even even you know Bronnie coming in making plays. It wasn't enough, but just guys just got to buckle down and make plays and and hopefully, hopefully, there's a little bit of the team captains Boogie and Kobe have to have to really lead this team and and make sure that everyone's on the same page, because right now they seem to really be sleepwalking out there at times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, if there's any good news, it's that well, we've been focused on this one. The team has been focused on this Auburn game since about I don't know tip off of the second half of the Long Beach game.
Speaker 1:So clearly. This one has our attention.
Speaker 2:A couple other notes just to kind of respond to some things that you brought up about Holloway. What's interesting I didn't notice, until you mentioned it, kind of the gap in the figures that you mentioned. He shoots 39% from three, only 30% from two. So maybe he is the one that you really pressure from the outside. Just having not sound that has seen the guy. But from what you described in the metrics he's tiny.
Speaker 1:Sounds like the. Yeah, it sounds like okay, he can't play down low he can't exactly.
Speaker 2:Just yeah if he's, if he gets past you, great, especially with you. Know, vincent and Josh and rip protection positions.
Speaker 1:Maybe you funnel him in there, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's not a high. He's not a high assist guy yet.
Speaker 1:He's not like a pure, he's one of those shooting point guards, so. But he's a dangerous guy. He can, he can get, he can get hot on you and. But he is a freshman and and, as we know, you can't always depend on freshmen to do the right thing all the time. So it's going to be a challenging game for USC. I think if USC can score, I think USC is going to have to score at least 75 points in this one to win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds about right yeah it's it.
Speaker 1:There's nothing on this team that shows me that they can, that they can win a 65, 63 game, Because right now this team has sort of tried to move its identity to offense when it's when. The identity of the team has been defense in recent years and there's been some pickups along the way. So right now it's the worst of both worlds because the offense is sputtering and the defense is is not what it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one of the things about the confidence that the team might slash could have by beating Auburn last year I was. I remember the one thing that stuck out to me about this Auburn game last year was that they just offensively they just seem to be in whatever mode, just kind of like all right, whoever wants to shoot it should. It basically looked a lot like a little more athletic version of the Bobby Hurley offense where they just kind of just all right, whoever wants to take a shot go ahead. No big deal, not a lot of structure. If I remember last year which is weird for for a team that's so high scoring and I don't know if we were able to do something to disrupt them I don't know, but maybe if we're able to kind of replicate whatever we did to take them out of out of their offensive comfort zone, they're not a great team.
Speaker 1:They're a defense that turns into offensive team. They're not great in half court in general. All right, you know, Bruce Pearl, teams are generally haven't been great offensive teams as far as you know, being great cutters and screeners and and doing set plays.
Speaker 1:They're generally play defense, transition one on one, out muscle, you rebound, you know that kind of thing. They're the manufacturer points and and occasionally, you know they play one on one A lot of. You know they try to get your shooters clear and so if you play good defense against Auburn, then we could beat, we can win this game without a doubt. Fingers crossed, all right, okay, trojan fans, don't be so discouraged, even though everything is discouraging to this point. It's a long season. Let's not count out these Trojans. Let's try to support them. A lot of great games coming up. We have a lot of great players. Now that everybody is back, the team is at full strength. So let's see what happens, and no one's going to make any predictions from here, because so far all the predictions have been pretty worthless at this point. So let's, let's see what happens on Sunday and we'll be back the week after that. So thanks for listening and Mark, any last words?
Speaker 2:Nope, as usual, fight on everyone, fight on.